How to Separate Your Identity From Your Behavior (and Why You Should) - Sam Blum
In a perfect world, it’d be easy to untangle our mistakes from our personal identities, but in reality, it’s rarely a simple task. Every misstep can become a teachable moment if you approach it with the right intentions: namely, forgiving yourself and looking for ways to understand those whom you may have offended or disappointed.
The Researchers Behind Stanford’s Most Popular Class Say The Best Relationships Have 6 Traits - Louis Neal
Relationships exist on a continuum. At first, you experience real connectionless contact, while at the opposite end you feel supported, affirmed, and fully accepted. In between, you feel attached and the relationship feels functional, but you want a closer connection.
Narcissism driven by insecurity, not grandiose sense of self - Pascal Wallisch
For a long time, it was unclear why narcissists engage in unpleasant behaviors, such as self-congratulation, as it actually makes others think less of them.
Narcissists are not grandiose, but rather insecure, and this is how they seem to cope with their insecurities.
What to Do When You Get Triggered - Darlene Lancer, JD, LMFT
Healthy boundaries and self-esteem make us less reactive to other people.
When someone pushes your buttons, learn to manage that person so that you're not easily triggered and manipulable.
Anger often covers up real hurt or vulnerability, blame may be hiding guilt, and self-blame may be displaced anger we have toward someone else.
What Makes a Compassionate Man? - Kozo Hattori
12 years of physical abuse and being forced to the confines of the “act-like-a-man box” wrung most of that compassion out of me by the time I reached adulthood.
How Happiness Can Help You Through Hard Times - Robert Emmons
In fact, it is precisely under crisis conditions when we have the most to gain by a grateful perspective on life. In the face of demoralization, gratitude has the power to energize. In the face of brokenness, gratitude has the power to heal. In the face of despair, gratitude has the power to bring hope.
Writing Tickets to Unenforceable Rules - Dr. Frederic Luskin
We don't, we can't think straight when writing tickets on unenforceable rules, when we are gripped by our wounded ego. The only difference is in either case we are convinced in our being rational. Except after the fact when we stop to think about it.
Four Ways Happiness Can Hurt You - JUNE GRUBER
Clearly, happiness is popular. But is happiness always good? Can feeling too good ever be bad? Researchers are just starting to seriously explore these questions, with good reason: By recognizing the potential pitfalls of happiness, we enable ourselves to understand it more deeply and we learn to better promote healthier and more balanced lives.
Is a Happy Life Different from a Meaningful One? - Jill Suttie & Jason Marsh
Research suggests there’s more to life than happiness—and even calls into question some previous findings from the field of positive psychology.
While there may be more to life than happiness, there may also be more to “happiness” than pleasure alone.
Why It's Better to Stay Curious Than to Make Assumptions - Matthew Legge
Curiosity has many benefits: It makes people think harder about problems and respond better to stress, for instance.
The fear of looking unintelligent, or blind trust in someone else, can dampen curiosity.
Confirmation bias and moralizing have a particularly detrimental effect on the ability to stay curious.
Happiness Can Be Learned - University of Trento
Psychological well-being gradually increased within participants from the beginning to the end of the course. That was especially true for life satisfaction, perceived well-being, self-awareness and emotional self-regulation.
The participants in the study also reported a significant decrease in anxiety, perceived stress, negative thoughts, rumination and anger tendencies.
How Going Through Trauma Can Change Your Brain - JR Thorpe
Traumatic events can do a number on all aspects of your health, from appetite to sleep to mental health. But it’s less well known that trauma can affect the brain. From the parts that regulate fear and anger to the sections that hold onto memories, traumatic events can leave scars in several key areas of the brain, with long-term effects for its health and functioning.
You’re Not an Individual, and Here’s Why - Matthew Legge
The concept of the individual making choices for themselves is central to the philosophies, institutional structures, and common sense of individualist cultures. But is it true?
Why your most important relationship is with your inner voice - Rachel Cooke
Are there right and wrong ways to communicate with yourself, and if so, are there techniques that might usefully be employed by those with inner voices that are just a little too loud?
Why it's time to stop pursuing happiness - David Robson
Over the past 10 years, numerous studies have shown that our obsession with happiness and high personal confidence may be making us less content with our lives, and less effective at reaching our actual goals. Indeed, we may often be happier when we stop focusing on happiness altogether.
Why Choice Is the Way to Happiness - Deepak Chopra
Consumerism, although it provides little fixes of pleasure, is one of the worse ways to achieve lasting happiness.
The other reason we need a new kind of happiness is the epidemic of depression and anxiety.
When Forgiving Yourself Is the Hardest Kind of Forgiveness - Andrea Brandt Ph.D. M.F.T.
If someone else had wronged you, you’d want an apology, and then you’d decide whether or not to forgive them.
But when it’s you who’s done wrong, the steps are less clear. Maybe you don’t believe you deserve forgiveness, or you do but don’t know how to self-forgive. Either way, you feel awful.
What Is Love? - Lucia F. O'Sullivan Ph.D.
Love involves some combination of intimacy, passion, and commitment.
Cross-cultural research provides evidence that these components are universal.
Of all the people in the world, there is likely just a handful at most in your lifetime with whom you will fall in love.
What If Everything You Believed About Love Was Wrong? - David B. Feldman Ph.D.
Love, at its true core, is a moment-to-moment emotional experience of warmth and mutual caring.
Real love is “shared positivity.” This occurs anytime two people connect over a shared positive emotion.
What Is Positive Psychology - Sandip Roy
Positive psychology focuses on positive states, positive traits, and positive institutions:
Positive states mean feeling great, feeling grateful, feeling proud, feeling alive.
Positive traits mean character, and also things like talents and interests that we consider to be positive characters, along with grit, self-control, kindness, sense of humor.
Positive institutions indicate our schools, our religious places, our sports teams, our cultural traditions, the things that really support us in feeling good and being good.